I take a deep breath, praying to the Divine that this isn’t a mistake.
“We came to Crea to search for a dagger.” The words spill out of me. Graylen settles against the wall, leaning with his hands in his pockets, masking his surprise just as I knew he would. “Nightfall. Wehaveto find it, Adrian.”
Adrian’s eyes widen in surprise.
“Have you heard of it?” I press, harboring a kernel of hope that he has.
“No.” He shakes his head and turns to face us. “What makes you so certain it’s here?”
I feel Graylen shift beside me, still perched against the wall.“You’re sure about this, little princess?”he sends into my mind, and I have to suppress a shudder at the way it feels to have him there again.
“Nope,”I reply.
Amusement dances through the thread that binds us as he responds,“I’ll be ready to find us a way out if everything goes to shit.”
Graylen has my back; it pushes me over the edge, urging me to tell Adrian the truth—at least some of it.
“Your uncle has it,” I answer. “And if we don’t get it back, alotof people are going to die. Not just those in Penyth, but Creans too.”
Fifty-Eight
Blue Lace Agate
“What makes this dagger so special?”Adrian asks warily. “You left behind your home—not knowing if you’d be able to get back—why?”
Because Nightfall may be the key to releasing the chokehold Moros and Vidaris have over Crea once and for all. Because this might be our only chance at getting a leg up if war does break out.
Instead, I settle on saying, “You’ve witnessed magic first-hand when you were in Crea—you saw what true darkness looks like. This weapon could help us stop darkness like that from harmingbothrealms.”
As I say it, I realize how much I mean it—how mentioning that it could save Crea isn’t just for Adrian’s benefit. Being back here, I realize I don’t hate it anymore. I pity it.
The people in this kingdom didn’t ask for this darkness,didn’t ask to be severed from the fae and be trapped in a dying land. They deserve to have someone fight for them, too.
“That darkness could come to Crea?” Adrian asks.
I nod. “It’s already here.”
He pales and turns back to the window, eyes drifting over the empty market and scattered trees.
“Tell me what I can do to help,” Adrian grits out.
I lie in bed, staring up at the same ceiling as when I was forced to come to the castle all those months ago. There’s the light shuffle of Graylen’s feet against the floorboards as he gets ready for bed.
Adrian agreed to help us search for Nightfall. We didn’t mention how I have a shard of it that will hopefully lead me to it,orthat I had a magical vision about Moros in the secret library room, but he knows far more than we initially planned on telling him.
That room will be the first place we check—and hopefully the last.
A chill sweeps through the room as the temperature drops outside, and I pull the furred blankets up to my chin.
It’s hard to imagine how much my life was about to change when I was still that girl—how many people I was going to begin to care for and love, how different I would feel harnessing the suppressed magic within me.
On reflex, my fingers reach up to graze where the collar sat earlier.
Even with it gone, there’s still no flicker of magic inside of me. No rushing of relief as it floods back in or even flickers as it refills slowly. It’s just as empty as it was when I wore the suppressor.
“Are you ready to dreamwalk again?” Graylen’s deep voice shakes me out of my spiraling thoughts.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I mutter. The plan has been for me to search through my dream state to avoid anyone seeing us. The perfect plan…other than the fact that my magic has been slowly draining since using the shard.
